System and method for generating and storing digital receipts for electronic shopping

ABSTRACT

A system and a method are provided for generating a digital receipt for purchases made utilizing a digital wallet or with other payment procedures. The digital receipt is stored in the cloud in a digital receipts repository for later retrieval. The digital receipt can be standardized to facilitate data processing of the data contained in data fields of the digital receipt. The data fields are text/field searchable and actionable so that the receipts and the data therein can be viewed in any manner desired by the user of the digital wallet.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No.15/895,370, filed Feb. 13, 2018 and issued as U.S. Pat. No. 10,592,941on Mar. 17, 2020, which is a continuation of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 13/774,623, filed Feb. 22, 2013 and issued as U.S. Pat. No.9,892,434 on Feb. 13, 2018, the entire content of each of which isincorporated by reference herein.

BACKGROUND OF THE DISCLOSURE 1. Field of the Disclosure

The present disclosure relates to electronic shopping. Moreparticularly, it relates to a system and/or method for generating adigital receipt for purchases made using a digital wallet of otherpayment procedures.

2. Description of the Related Art

Online and point of sale shopping are becoming very convenient forconsumers. The recent introduction of digital wallet services makespoint of sale (POS) and online shopping safe and easy by storing allpayment and shipping information in one convenient and secure place.With a digital wallet, the consumer simply can shop and checkout faster.At merchant locations equipped with near field communication (NFC)terminals, checkout can be done simply and easily by using anapplication on a suitable mobile device. During POS or online shopping,from a home computer or mobile device, customers can simply choose topay with the digital wallet, and all information generally required tomake a purchase is communicated to the merchant or vendor.

As the number of such transactions increases, it has become difficultfor consumers to review their purchases for purposes of monitoring howthey are spending their money, to determine whether the money is spentwithin the consumer's guidelines or budget, and to keep track ofreceipts whether on paper or those sent electronically sent to theconsumer's e-mail address(es).

There are a variety of ways in which merchants may provide assistance inthe form of a receipt for a purchase. For example, when an order isplaced with a merchant, especially if it is placed online, an e-mailreceipt is often sent to the customer. This e-mail may includeinformation specifying the product or products ordered, the cost, theaccount that the customer used to make payment, and other informationconcerning the order. Whether the purchase is made online, over thetelephone, or in person, to receive such receipts, the customer mustprovide additional information (e.g., an e-mail address) during theordering process, which only adds to the burden of placing the order.Such receipts are in a variety of formats, and do not lend themselves toaccessing the data, especially for later analysis.

Typical digital wallets may display payment transaction history, but donot provide stock keeping unit (SKU) level information or visualsummaries or cumulative analytics of the shopping receipts.

Credit card accounts may provide end of year statements that showexpenditures in various categories. This data is for a single creditcard account, and does not consolidate data for all digital paymentmethods. Also, such data may not be available for review at all desiredtimes. Mint.com, and other similar online services, provide spendinganalysis based on the accounts (bank, credit card) that the consumer haslinked to the service, but do not provide SKU level informationcustomary in current paper or e-mail receipts. Information can beprovided on merchant category level e.g., restaurants, gas stations,etc.

The TabbedOut™ mobile application displays a receipt when the tab at arestaurant or bar is closed. A receipt can be sent to the user bye-mail. It has the same limitations as other receipts noted above.

While these receipts may be helpful to a customer, there is no standardor organized way of receiving, storing, accessing, analyzing andutilizing these received receipts.

SUMMARY OF THE DISCLOSURE

There is provided a system and/or method for using a digital wallet, oran extension to a digital wallet, to receive, store, retrieve andanalyze digital receipts in a single or standard format.

There is also provided such a system and/or method that have data fieldsassociated with the digital receipt to permit the data to undergo dataprocessing so that the data can be displayed, organized, manipulated andcategorized, and various reports on expenditures can be produced.

There is further provided such a system and/or method in which digitalreceipts can be made available on a mobile device or online tofacilitate transactions, such as customer returns.

The present disclosure has a computer readable non-transitory storagemedium that stores instructions of a computer program that when executedby a computer system result in performance of steps of the method andgenerates a digital receipt.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is block diagram of system for implementing an exemplaryembodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 2A is a flow chart representing the manner in which the system ofFIG. 1 operates.

FIG. 2B is a flow chart representing the manner in which the system ofFIG. 1 operates when payment is made with cash.

FIG. 3 is a schematic representation of one possible standard format fora digital receipt.

FIGS. 4A, 4B, 4C, 4D and 4E illustrate examples of possible displaysgenerated by various analytical tools to provide analysis of spending.

A component or a feature that is common to more than one figure isindicated with the same reference number in each figure.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

Referring to the drawings and, in particular, FIG. 1, there is shown aserver generally represented by reference numeral 100. Server 100 isdepicted in the cloud 120, and is configured to act as a part or as anindependent extension of a digital wallet service. Server 100 isconnected to the Internet 122 by an interface 114. Server 100, which canbe comprised of multiple connected servers, includes a data processor102 and a memory 104, and is connected to a display 116 and a keyboard118 that serves as an interface for administration, maintenance andservicing of server 100. Server 100 may have a plurality of otherperipheral devices customarily found in any computer, such as, forexample, a CD or DVD drive (not shown), for placing programs on theserver or for creating physical records of data processed by the server.

Memory 104 has a various memory portions for storing an operating system(“OS”) 106 for server 100, an applications memory portion 108 for one ormore application programs, and a memory portion used as a digital wallet110.

A portion of memory 104 is configured as a digital receipt repository112. Digital receipts are stored in a portion of memory 104 configuredas a database 113.

The data stored in memory 104, and in particular the data of database113 can be stored in any type of memory, including a hard drive, a flashmemory, a CD, a RAM, or any other suitable memory, preferably withprovisions for suitable backup and encryption, as well known in the art.

User computers 125A to 125N can access server 100 via a connection tothe Internet 122. Computers 125A to 125N can each have anapplication/interface providing access to a digital online wallet 126Ato 126N, respectively.

A mobile device 130 has a display 140 which may have a memory 145 forstoring an operating system 150 and a series of applications or appletstherein. The series of applets include an applet or application program(hereinafter an application 160) that can be, for example, a thin clientor Internet Browser for use with the exemplary embodiment describedherein. Application 160 and mobile device 130 access server 100 via anInternet connected wireless connection e.g., Wi-Fi hot spot 164 or byany telephone network, such as a 3G or 4G system, on which mobile device130 communicates. Application 160 includes, or connects to, a digitalwallet client 162 so that Internet purchases are quickly and easilycompleted. The digital wallet client 162 functionality for makingpurchases can reside in the Internet, as in digital wallet 110. In thatcase, the browser of mobile device 130 is the application that allowsaccess to the wallet functionalities.

Purchases are made by a consumer using a computer 125A to 125N, ormobile device 130, or by swiping a payment card. Mobile device 130communicates with a merchant's POS terminal 170 via anyone of: NFC, aquick response (QR) code, Bluetooth, and manual token code, to make apurchase. POS terminal 170 has general POS capabilities including theability to swipe a payment card (credit, debit or prepaid). POS terminal170 can be designed to read QR codes. POS terminal 170 is connected to apayment network 180, and to applicable payment middleware at themerchant's system, to complete the payment transaction. The user'saccount, whether a digital wallet, account with the merchant, loyaltyprogram, or other source of funds includes the unique address of theuser's digital receipts repository 112 in the cloud and will supply thisinformation as part of the transaction so that a receipt may be sent tothe digital receipts repository 112, which can be associated with thedigital wallet 110. Digital receipts are delivered directly to theuser's digital receipts repository 112 via interface 114 or via thepayment network which can provide service to forward the digitalreceipts to users' repositories.

If a purchase is made using a cash transaction device 172, such as aconventional cash register, a paper receipt is usually generated. If adigital record is desired, the user will provide a digital walletaddress to the merchant. The address of the user's digital receiptsrepository can, for example, be entered manually on a keyboard device orby using a loyalty card (linked to a loyalty account) or otherwiseidentifying the user at the POS to the merchant. The merchant deliversthe digital receipt either via the payment network 180 or directly tothe user's digital receipts repository 112 via the Internet 122 by usingthe address of the repository. Other data paths and entities fortransmission of a digital receipt are available. For example, themerchant forwards the digital receipt to a corporate repository. Thecorporate repository then forwards the receipt to a trusted third partytransmission service, which then forwards the digital receipt to theuser's digital receipts repository 112. Eventually the digital receiptis accessible in digital wallet client 162 of mobile device 130 andother available interfaces for viewing and other uses. Thus, regardlessof the manner in which the purchase is made, whether by a cashtransaction device 172, a POS terminal 170 or with via a merchant website 190, from an online store or site, using a payment card, a mobiledigital wallet, or an online digital wallet, if the address of thedigital receipt repository 112 is available, the digital receipt issubmitted to the payment system.

While the digital receipt repository 112 is shown as being on server 100in the cloud 120 and associated with a digital wallet 110, the digitalreceipt repository 112 can be part of an independent service, and hostedin a variety of other locations, by trusted providers including, forexample, the payment network 180, a bank or another financialinstitution. These trusted providers can engage in research onconsolidated data, while protecting the privacy of individual users.

The contents of the receipts in the digital receipt repository 112 canbe filed and organized. Thus, the user can search and browse allreceipts using application 160 on mobile device 130, a computer 125A to125N, or with any other Internet connected device.

Server 100 also receives information from payment network 180. Paymentnetwork 180 can supply information, such as, which account was chargedand the amount charged or other details of the purchase, which can becombined with the receipt data received from the merchant.

Online purchases can also be made by using an Internet connected device,such as one of computers 125A to 125N or mobile device, connected to amerchant web site 190. Merchant web site 190 is connected to paymentnetwork 180, and purchases can be processed using a digital wallet. Thedigital receipt content is delivered to the user's digital receiptsrepository 112 as described above.

Referring to FIG. 2A, the user, at 200, uses one of the computers 125Ato 125N (or mobile device 130) to make a purchase online or at a POS. Inparticular, a digital wallet 160 capable application is used tofacilitate the purchase via mobile device 130, or one of online digitalwallets 126A to 126N is used to facilitate purchases with one ofcomputers 125A to 125N, respectively. User's digital wallet and paymentinformation includes the address or location of the payer's digitalreceipts repository 112 where the digital receipt will be sent. Thisaddress or location may be expressed as a unique URL. The payer'sdigital receipts repository location/ID may also reside at themerchant's customer records (such as loyalty program or customerdatabase) and may be found there in addition to or in place of thepayment method. The customer should have the option to opt in or out ofusing the merchant provided facility.

A payment is made at 210, which can be a conventional paymenttransaction, in which payment information (or a payment token) iscommunicated to the merchant. When using a cloud based digital wallet110, the apparatus or device used is essentially just an access devicefor making the payment. Payment information is generally communicated asis customary for electronic payments. The method to receive digitalreceipts relies on all current and regular methods for secure payments.An additional element is the communication of the user's digital receiptrepository address/identifier (e.g., a URL) where the digital receipt issent when the payment is made.

Referring again to FIG. 2A, at 220, if required, the customer providesthe address of the digital receipt repository 112. At 230, the digitalreceipt is generated using information from the merchant, and can obtainadditional sources of information from, for example, the account or thedigital wallet. The appropriate user account is accessed and is debitedin the amount required for the purchase. The digital walletfunctionality may have access and be linked to more than one of theuser's accounts, such as, for example, different credit card accounts,so that the user can decide which account to use for a particularpurchase. At 240, the digital receipt is stored in the digital receiptrepository 112. At 250, the receipt may be tagged by the user, asdescribed below.

While not included in the digital receipt repository function, a user'sbank will confirm the amount that has been charged due to thetransaction. The appropriate standard fields of the digital receipt,discussed below with respect to FIG. 3, are populated with the receivedinformation. The user's electronic payment details include the addressof the user's unique digital receipts repository address (URL) in adedicated payment data field. The payment network may also send receiptcontent that is merged with the merchant's content or can be used, forexample, if the merchant does not provide digitally compatible receiptdata or the payment network 180 may provide a routing service.

It is advantageous for the user of the digital receipts service anddigital wallet client 162 on online digital wallet 126A to 126N to havethe opportunity to tag and annotate 250 the digital receipt in some wayboth automatically and manually. While a merchant code may provideadequate information, there are situations in which a user desires totag items in different types of categories, such as, for example,business expenses or personal expenses, or make other annotations. Also,for example, the user could set up an alert to display when the warrantyincluded in the purchase is expiring.

A stored digital receipt will always be available to the user to recallfrom cloud 120, or wherever the digital receipt repository is located.Thus, paper receipts are not required. The receipt stored on, forexample, server 100 in cloud 120 has the advantages of never being lost,and always available for subsequent analysis. Thus, the receipt can beused to return goods to receive a refund, or to receive a refund for aportion of services not yet performed.

Referring to FIG. 2B, at 200, the user may make a purchase, and at 250,may elect to pay cash. At 255, the user is asked to provide an addressto which a digital receipt may be electronically transmitted. At 260, adigital receipt is generated analogous to 230 of FIG. 2A. A conventionalhard copy receipt can also be provided. At 265, the receipt istransmitted to the digital receipts repository 112 and/or paymentnetwork to be forwarded to the server 100 where it is stored. At 270,the receipt is tagged as described above.

Referring again to FIG. 1, the data representative of the digitalreceipt is stored in database portion 113 [see my change back] of memory104 in a series of fields. Preferably, the data is stored in a standard,text searchable format, which is actionable. Actionable as used hereinmeans that the data can be retrieved, read or manipulated so that thedata can be used, compiled or analyzed in any manner required, and ifdesired, can be displayed in any format as text, a graph, animation,report or in any other user perceivable format. Further, memory 104 mayhave an underlying database program that allows a user to, for example,search for a particular entry or classify receipts or arrange or groupreceipts, and thus various reports can be generated. Database APIs maybe available to provide easy access to programs to utilize receipt datain various applications or thin clients.

As shown in FIG. 3, a first series of fields identify the business withwhich a user has conducted a payment transaction. These fieldspreferably include the business name 300, business address 302, businesstelephone number 304, business fax number 306, business e-mail address308, and the business or merchant category code (also known as cardacceptor business code when credit card accounts are used) 310 that isan indication of the type of business in which the merchant is involved.Such merchant information can indicate, for example, that the merchantis an automobile servicing business or gas station. Other possiblefields include receipt/transaction number/ID and merchant's internalcode(s).

Field 312 contains information on the manner or how the purchase wasmade. Field 312 may also indicate that a digital wallet has been used.Acceptable values for field 312 can be represented by a predefined code,for example, 1=online, 2=POS, 3=digital wallet, 4=payment card, 5=NFC,6=cash. Multiple values can be accepted. New methods must be registeredas predefined codes. Data in this field can be representative of atelephone purchase, where the merchant manually entered paymentinformation into POS terminal 170 of FIG. 1, without a credit being atthe merchant location. For example, the user can provide the repositorylocation as a URL (or respective tiny URL) over the phone to be linkedto the telephone purchase, or data could be sent as an e-mail attachmentto a customer's wallet account, which would extract the dataautomatically to the receipt repository. The user could also key in orscan/tab/enter a token identifier at the POS to the repository addresswhen making a purchase using cash. The user's loyalty card or customeraccount at the merchant could include the link to the user's digitalreceipt repository, in some cases associated with the user's digitalwallet, where digital receipts can be sent so that when the loyalty cardis scanned, the repository address becomes known.

The next series of fields in FIG. 3 contain customer information. Thesefields are customer name 320, customer address 322, customer telephonenumber 324, customer fax number 326, and customer e-mail address 328.The customer's payment account number used to fund the transaction isstored in field 330, and the currency type used (United States dollars,Japanese yen, etc.) is stored in field 332. The customer payment accountin field 330 can be stored so that only the last four digits aredisplayed by default or printed if a hard copy of the digital receiptmust be produced. Alternatively, only the last four digits need bestored or revealed. While the full customer payment account number isrequired to issue a refund, this information will generally be availableat the merchant and additionally also when: (a) the customer is presentto return goods and the mobile device 130 or credit card used to conductthe original transaction is also present, or (b) if the customer isonline and uses the same computer used to make the original purchase.The digital receipt including the payment information can also beprovided from the receipts repository, as needed. Other possible fieldsinclude but are not limited to: customer's loyalty card number, customerID, customer account number at the merchant, billing and deliveryaddresses, registration link, link to warranty, advertisement, coupons,post to social media, and e-mail to a friend. Since the digital receiptis not limited by space or content format, the merchant could alsocollaborate with other merchants with complementary services and, forexample, sell personalized advertising space (as an example, someoneshopping at Bloomingdales could be a target market for Whole Foods).Receipt also can easily incorporate logos as active links; for example,if payment was made by using a MasterCard™ payment card the MasterCardlogo can appear as the identification for the payment method.

An expandable field 340 in FIG. 3 relates to the item or items that havebeen purchased during the transaction. Expandable field 340 includes forthe first item purchased, subfields for a brief description of thegoods/services 342A and a secondary free description field, for example,including weight, price and color of the item purchased, the SKU number342B, and the price 342C and applicable taxes. SKU data may also includean image of the purchased item. For the second item purchased, thefields are a brief description of the goods/services and a secondaryfree description field 344A, the SKU number 344B, and the price 344C.For the third item purchased, the subfields are again a briefdescription of the goods/services and a secondary free description field346A, the SKU number 346B, and the price 346C. Such expansion ofexpandable field 340 is repeated for each item purchased.

The time and date of the transaction or purchase are stored in fields348A and 348B, respectively, as separate fields are needed for date andtime. Fields should be structured so that various global date and timeformats can be supported (for example dd/mm/yyyy and mm/dd/yyyy). Ingeneral, for analytics purposes, each field in the receipt must containa single data point to follow known best practices for applicabledatabase architecture. However, as noted above multiple values areacceptable in certain cases. For localization and internationalizationpurposes, the receipt format should have a field that indicates locale,which is linked to local formats.

Data representing the sum of the prices 342C, 344C, 346C etc. is storedin field 350. Data representing any taxes on the total price is storedin fields 352A, 352B, 352C and 352D. For example, these fields 352A,352B, 352C and 352D may be assigned to a VAT tax, a local sales tax, ora special tax on the specific goods or services. Multiple discounts maybe applied, whether provided as promotions by the merchant, or madeavailable on the basis of coupon codes, or of any other discount type.Discount data is stored in fields 354A, 354B, 354C and 354D. Datarepresenting the total paid is stored in field 356.

Additional fields 358A, 358B, 358C and 358D are used to store userdesignated tags, as mentioned above with respect to 260 of FIG. 2. Aseries of predefined, or user defined, indicators may be established toassist the user in classifying and categorizing the various purchasesautomatically and manually. The user interface presents tags in clearhuman readable text/icon format. Examples are food, clothes, travel,entertainment, medical and shelter related expenses. The merchantcategory code can also be stored in a subfield. If no code is entered,the merchant category code alone may be used as a default to classifythe purchase or purchases. Empty fields are accepted. Additional fieldsmay be defined by merchants and can be displayed by the digital receiptsystem (for example product image, merchant website, Facebook® link,survey link). Additional fields can also be added to the standard tocover various types of receipts and to ensure rich analytics of theuser's cumulative receipts data. Fields of undefined type may besupported.

Various APIs can be used to analyze the data of the digital receiptsstored in the digital receipts repository on server 100. Analysis parsedby SKU number, or by groups of SKU numbers, is particularly useful fordetailed analysis of spending trends, which can be for a selected yearor for all years from the time that data from digital receipts was firststored. As is well known in user interface design, the most recentlyviewed analytics could be maintained in the device or applicationaccessing the analytics, e.g. a mobile device, so that on returning tothe data display, the content from previous session is displayed bydefault.

FIG. 4A is a display of expenditures for various food types 400,including for one year the total spent for each type 401, the total forall types 402, the monthly average 403, and the total discount due tothe use of coupons 404. A graph 405 of monthly expenditures is provided.

FIG. 4B is a display of the expenditures of FIG. 4A for fruits andvegetables of various kinds 410. A bar graph 412 of monthly total poundsand price per pound is provided.

FIG. 4C is a display of purchases at a particular store. Total in-store420 and online 422 expenditures for particular categories are provided,as is the total expenditure 424 for the year. A graph 426 by month forall expenditures is also provided, including online 428 and in-store 430expenditures.

FIG. 4D is display of monthly expenditures for a particular product; inthis case coffee. The total 450, monthly 452, highest 454, lowest 456and median 458 expenditures are displayed.

FIG. 4E is an example of possible year summaries showing locations mostoften visited for shopping, with the top ten locations illustrated in alist 470 and a pie chart 472. A bar graph 474 of the amount spent ateach location is shown. A graph 476 of in-store and online spending forall locations, as a function of time, is displayed. The top tencategories or items purchased 478 are displayed, as well as the totalamount spent for each 480.

There are numerous advantages offered by the disclosed exemplaryembodiment. When using a digital payment, the customer always receives adigital (electronic) receipt when a purchase is made, either online orat a POS. Furthermore, the method can be extended to cash purchases aswell. The receipt is in a standard format. Any account used to makepurchases can link the purchases to the user's digital receiptsrepository service in the cloud. The receipts are stored in the cloud,where the receipts are always available for retrieval and for otheruses. The user has access to all receipts, including SKU level data,from the user's mobile and online devices, and can utilize various typesof analytics to review personal purchasing data for purchasing history,trends, categories, favorite products or types of products and stores.This feature thus provides insights into personal spending andpurchasing behavior. The data can be used to analyze spending, taxespaid, or any other variable on a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearlybasis. The data can be exported to a spread sheet program to facilitateinspection and analysis of the data. Analytical tools can be providedfor use on a mobile device or on any online device to make such analysiseasy and desirable to use. Thus, the user will be more likely to use adigital wallet and, in particular, a digital wallet that supports suchreceipts repository and analytical tools. The data can be made availablefor view by the user in the form of, for example, list, pie chart, bargraph, animation or any convenient format. Data displayed can include,for example, the top ten most frequently purchased items, total spendingas a function of time at various merchants, spending on differentproduct categories or actual products (e.g. Latte YoY), and the high,low and median price paid for a particular product. The latter mayassist the user in finding, for example, the lowest price previouslypaid for a commodity, and the location where that price was paid. Thisis particularly useful for searching for the lowest price gasolinestation or groceries, for example. The digital receipts repositorysystem may also combine data from other sources to provide richerexperience, including product images, product details, links tomerchant's customer service, merchant's location, offers and coupons.The user can click to see merchant details, a map, and more.

Database queries are made using SQL or similar, known databasemanagement (DBM) tools and processes. Predefined APIs access and “mashup” or combine receipt data for processing, and can be used directlyfrom user friendly commands or search options in the user interface(application, thin client, browser view). For example, from a searchview, the user could select the year 2012 and the category gasoline, andsee a timeline of purchases, amounts and prices, total and averages, andfrequent locations. Data can be tied to personal financial software toallow for budgeting, keeping track of expenses, and possibly for taxpreparation purposes.

By using the system and method described herein, shopping can become atruly paperless endeavor. A receipt is always available. The receiptcannot be stolen or misplaced. Receipts are securely stored withappropriate user access restrictions, e.g. user name and password,required to access data. User's purchases are linked to the digitalreceipts repository account where receipts are sent and stored. The usermay analyze the personal data, using the appropriate analytical tools,either separately or together, as and when the user desires. The methodalso includes an option for the merchant to define the order in whichthe fields in their receipts are displayed, if different from a defaultorder. The user may choose to view receipts in a default field order.The method can be made available at all points of sale or points ofinteraction. The user can opt to have all receipts stored in a digitalreceipts repository in the cloud. If desired by the user, a digitalreceipt may also be exported from the repository e.g. sent to aspecified e-mail account.

The merchant or vendor of products also enjoys several advantages. Thedata sent to digital receipts repository can be stored and monitored sothat the merchants and, for example, an independent third party, cananalyze the data in ways of interest to the merchant. Purchasing trendsand other valuable business information may be extracted from the data.This extracted data assists the merchant to better serve its customersand enhance profitability. Merchants can “go green” by reducing paperusage. This attracts customers who prefer a paperless option. Merchantscan add to the digital receipts various communications including, butnot limited to images, product offers, digital coupons and links. Spaceon digital receipts can be sold or rented to affiliated merchants orthose offering complimentary goods or services. This allows merchants toconnect with customers directly via their mobile and connected devicesand personalize their communication with the individual customers.

Payment card issuers, acquirers and payment system operators alsobenefit from the use of credit cards or other digital payment methods,such as electronic wallets. Rich digital payment data and receipts arehandled in the payment network, to facilitate providing analyticsservices to merchants. The system and method described herein is useableto provide a digital wallet with fully digital receipts.

Various approaches, technologies and pathways can be used to accessserver 100. In general, the Internet is used. Access may be granted to ahome or a business computer including a desk top, lap top, or notebookcomputer; a personal digital assistant; or any other Internet connecteddevice, such as a tablet (for example, a device such as an iPad®) andmobile device (e.g. a smartphone). Server 100 management can be donethrough a private access channel such as intranet or virtual privatenetwork (VPN) for greater security.

It will be understood that the present disclosure may be embodied in acomputer readable non-transitory storage medium. The medium storesinstructions of a computer program that when executed by a computersystem results in performance of steps of the method described herein.Such storage media may include any of those mentioned in the descriptionabove.

The terms “comprises” or “comprising” are to be interpreted asspecifying the presence of the stated features, integers, steps orcomponents, but not precluding the presence of one or more otherfeatures, integers, steps or components or groups thereof.

The techniques described herein are exemplary, and should not beconstrued as implying any particular limitation on the presentdisclosure. It should be understood that various alternatives,combinations and modifications could be devised by those skilled in theart. For example, steps associated with the processes described hereincan be performed in any order, unless otherwise specified or dictated bythe steps themselves. The present disclosure is intended to embrace allsuch alternatives, modifications and variances that fall within thescope of the appended claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for managing a digital receipt receivedfrom a merchant, the method performed by a processor executingoperations, in accordance with instructions embodied in a memory, theoperations comprising: receiving account information from a digitalwallet that is associated with a customer from a user device of thecustomer at a merchant point of sale (POS) terminal, the accountinformation including a unique address that is an internet uniformresource locator (URL) of a digital receipt repository associated withthe customer and the digital wallet, the user device and merchant POSterminal comprising circuitry to effect communication between themerchant POS terminal and the user device by at least one methodselected from the group consisting of: near field communication (NFC), acommunicated quick response (QR) code, and Bluetooth communication;receiving payment information associated with the account informationfrom the digital wallet for a purchase transaction being made by thecustomer to complete the purchase transaction; in response to completingthe purchase transaction, generating the digital receipt for thepurchase transaction; transmitting the digital receipt directly to theURL of the digital receipt repository using the URL; storing the digitalreceipt in the digital receipt repository using the URL; and grantingthe customer using the user device access to the digital receipt in thedigital receipt repository via the URL.
 2. The method of claim 1,wherein the POS terminal is in communication with a payment network. 3.The method of claim 2, wherein the transmitting of the digital receiptis from the POS terminal to the payment network and then to the URL. 4.The method of claim 1, further comprising: organizing a content of thedigital receipt for searching and displaying on the user device.
 5. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising: sending a copy of the digitalreceipt from the digital wallet to a specified e-mail address.
 6. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising: sending a copy of the digitalreceipt from the POS terminal to a specified e-mail address.
 7. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising: adding a digital coupon to thedigital receipt.
 8. The method of claim 1, wherein the digital receiptis a plurality of digital receipts and the digital receipts are for asingle credit card.
 9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:analyzing the plurality of digital receipts; generating a report ofspending and taxes paid, on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basisbased on the analysis of the plurality of digital receipts; anddisplaying the report on the user device.
 10. The method of claim 1,further comprising: storing warranty information for the purchasetransaction with the digital receipt; and displaying an alert on theuser device when the warranty for the purchase transaction is about toexpire.
 11. The method of claim 1, wherein the digital receipt has aplurality of data fields that are in a text searchable format.
 12. Themethod of claim 11, further comprising: processing data in the pluralityof data fields so that the data can be displayed, organized,manipulated, and categorized.
 13. The method of claim 11, furthercomprising: generating an analytic using information from the pluralityof data fields, wherein the analytic is at least one analytic selectedfrom the group consisting of: a graph, a pie chart, a list of top tencategories, and an animation; and displaying the analytic on the userdevice.
 14. The method of claim 11, further comprising: the plurality ofdata fields being populated with stock keeping unit (SKU) level data andwith the received payment information.
 15. A digital receipts system tomanage a digital receipt of a payment by a customer received from amerchant for a purchase, the system comprising: a merchant point of sale(POS) device; a user device, the user device and merchant POS devicecomprising circuitry to effect communication between the merchant POSdevice and the user device by at least one method selected from thegroup consisting of: near field communication (NFC), a communicatedquick response (QR) code, and Bluetooth communication; a server, incommunication with the merchant POS device and the user device, theserver having a processor and a memory that contains instructions thatare readable by the processor and cause the processor to: receiveaccount information from a digital wallet that is associated with acustomer from a user device of the customer at the merchant POS device,the account information including a unique address that is an internetuniform resource locator (URL) of a digital receipt repositoryassociated with the customer and the digital wallet; receive paymentinformation associated with the account information from the digitalwallet for a purchase transaction being made by the customer to completethe purchase transaction; in response to completing the purchasetransaction, generate the digital receipt for the purchase transaction;transmit the digital receipt directly to the URL of the digital receiptrepository using the URL; store the digital receipt in the digitalreceipt repository using the URL; grant the customer using the userdevice access to the digital receipt in the digital receipt repositoryvia the URL.
 16. The system of claim 15, further comprising a paymentnetwork in communication with the POS device.
 17. The system of claim16, wherein the POS device is configured to transmit the digital receiptfrom the POS device to the payment network and then to the URL.
 18. Thesystem of claim 15, further comprising: a display of the user device,and the digital receipt comprises a content organized for searching anddisplaying on the display of the user device.
 19. The system of claim15, wherein the digital receipt comprises a plurality of data fieldsthat are in a text searchable format.
 20. The system of claim 19,further comprising: the plurality of data fields being populated withstock keeping unit (SKU) level data pertaining to each item purchased inthe purchase transaction and with the received payment information.